Amnesty International Says Abuse Continues in Brazil

Amnesty International has reported to the United Nations that Brazil has scarcely improved its human rights record over the past decade.

The international human rights group Tuesday submitted a report to the U.N. Human Rights Committee in Geneva. It expresses concern about continued high numbers of extra-judicial killings, the widespread use of torture, and attacks against human rights defenders by police officers in Brazil

That U.N. committee is to begin Wednesday to conduct its own review of Brazil's progress on human rights.

The Amnesty report says despite implementation of a National Human Rights Plan in 1996 and an anti-torture law in 1997, Brazilian authorities continue to abuse their power, and that incidents of abuse often go unreported or unpunished. It says frequent targets for such abuse include include poor black or mixed-race men who are suspected of a crime.